


No Such Thing as Santa Claus

by displayheartcode



Series: Normal is the Watchword [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Detective AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 19:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1868895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/displayheartcode/pseuds/displayheartcode
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being Jewish lessened the pain that came with a dead Santa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Such Thing as Santa Claus

**Author's Note:**

> There was a deadline and I was binge-watching Castle.

“Okay,” I said to the Medical Examiner. “Talk to me.”

It was the day before Christmas, and it looked like murder was afoot. Before one of the major malls in the area had opened for the day, one poor janitor had sadly stumbled upon the crime. The victim was an elderly man with a bushy white beard and plump cheeks. His red suit was darkened with blood that dribbled and dried on the steps. His hat was askew and his boots were scuffed at the tips. The body was crumpled and the jolly belly was the epicenter of the messy stabbing sites.

That’s right—some asshole had killed Santa.

Kadam handed me a cup of steaming coffee. She took her own cup out of the cup holder and walked me inside the crime scene. “Therapy for everyone, that’s what.”

I ran a hand through my short hair and looked around the lobby of the mall. It was large and spacious and had two floors. We were on the first, and as I looked up, I realized that anyone could see us: There was a balcony of sorts on the second floor, giving anyone a good view of the scene. That wasn’t comfortable if the killer was still in the building.

This would had been an absolute disaster if they hadn’t temporarily closed the mall.

“How long has it been?” I asked, crouching down near the body and painfully aware how close the blood was to my new shoes. I kept the cup near my mouth and hoped that I wasn’t going to spill coffee on the corpse.

“Two and half hours—three at most.” Kadam pulled her dark hair up and put her gloves on. She pointed to the deeper stab wounds on the abdomen. Fluff had escaped from the padding that was inside the jacket, making it a mess for CSU to handle. “See the angles? Killer’s right-handed. He was close to the body and was shaking.”

I spotted uniforms walking around the top floor, checking things in with the shop owners, the employes, and the custodians. “Everyone accounted for?”

“Yup.” Kadam began plucking fibers off the body and was placing them in the brown bags. “Everyone who should be here is here, and so far they’re all looking clean.”

“Excellent!” I stood back up and almost stepped on a place card. “Let’s go catch our guy.”

I walked past the crime scene tape and checked myself over if any of the evidence had gotten stuck to me. Our last case had involved a murder at a glue factory, and that was an absolute mess trying to catalogue everything for the lab. I evened out the lapels of my coat and put myself in the mindset that I needed to be for the job. Nervous killer was right-handed, and since no one had left the building then this should be an open-shut case.

A man wearing elf ears and a stripped shirt was talking animatedly to one of the other detectives. His bell that was attached to his pointy hat kept ringing as he moved his head.

“Please,” he said. “It’s Christmas! We need to open.”

“If only the killer had thought of that,” Detective Collins said. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m sorry, but the mall needs to be closed.”

“Imagine that crowd coming in and we lose the body,” I pointed out, imagining the bedlam. “The crowd would also ruin the crime scene no matter how far we push them back. It’s for the best.”

“And your reputation…” Collins shook his head, his eyes glinting. “I don’t think a dead Santa Claus would be good for publicity. Now can you please go over to Officer Lewis there and answer some of his questions?”

The manager gave us beady-eyed glares and went to go give the officer his statement.

“Happy Holidays, Boy Scout,” I greeted, I handed him my coffee. It looked like he was going to need it more judging by the bags under his eyes. “Can you believe this mess?”

“Joyeux Noël,” Collins sighed, saying the words half-heartily. He raised the styrofoam cup in the air. “I just got here. What did I missed?”

“Dead Santa. Must be the grandson.”

“What?”

I hummed the first few bars of ‘Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer’.

He groaned. “I hate you.”

“No you don’t,” I said. “You’re too Canadian to hate someone.”

Collins finished the coffee and dumped it in a nearby trash can. “And here I was really looking forward to not seeing you for a week.” His smile was wry.

“You wound me so.” I stuffed my hands in my pockets and grinned. “Come on, this has to excite you. Don’t you want to imagine what drove someone to murder the day before Christmas? I mean, he killed Santa Claus. I have the feeling that this is going to be a really cool case.”

“I want to be home,” he said. “I want to look through my Netflix queue and eat poutine. I don’t want to see a dead piece of my childhood innocence on the floor.”

“Tough luck.” I looked at the crime scene where Kadam was attending to the corpse, then around to see the uniforms doing their job canvassing the building. The manager was glaring at us from a distance, and some of the employes were sharing nervous looks.

This was going to be fun, I could tell.

“Let’s go put ourselves on Santa’s nice list!” I said, and we went to go solve a murder.


End file.
